Cemetery owners say cleanup slow

Judge hears charges about unkempt sites

August 27, 2002|By Carlos Morales, Tribune staff reporter.

The owners of two cemeteries said in federal court Monday that they are working to comply with provisions of a decree to clean up the businesses. Marilyn Walsh, who with her husband, Michael, bought Mt. Glenwood South Cemetery in Glenwood and Mt. Glenwood West Cemetery in Willow Springs from her father last year, said she did not know about the decree when the properties were purchased.

The decree, approved in August 2001 by Judge Arlander Keys, ordered then-owner Willard Timmer to tighten standards for burial practices, grave placement and landscaping, among other issues. The decree settled a class-action lawsuit that alleged consumer fraud and negligence.

In June, the lawyer for the 16 plaintiffs, Daniel Edelman, filed a motion to have the judge enforce areas of the decree that are alleged not to have been completed.

Keys is expected to decide soon whether the owners are in compliance, Edelman said.

"The court order was distributed to staff, but there were problems getting them to comply," Marilyn Walsh said. Grave section "markers were not being put up by staff ... they could not get them in the ground in winter."

Answering an allegation that broken headstone pieces were being used as landfill, Michael Walsh said, "They are not now, and I don't know why they would have been used in the past."

Keys last month ordered the Walshes to appear at Monday's hearing after plaintiffs complained in June that dead trees continue to litter the grounds, cracked headstones still haven't been replaced and grave sites continue to be left open for more than a day.

Marilyn Walsh said the couple have spent 10 times what the cemeteries have made in profits on new equipment, including lawn mowers and a backhoe that will not crack gravestones as it runs over them.

Improvements have been slowest at Mt. Glenwood West, she said, "because we're trying to train workers on what needs to be done there."

Two of the plaintiffs, Sonja Washington and Refugia Haire, testified Monday about dead trees and tree stumps at both cemeteries, flooding on the non-paved cemetery roads, sunken graves and missing grave-section markers.

Washington, who has at least six relatives buried at Glenwood South, said she's seen at least 18 sunken graves, and their "condition has only gotten worse. Nothing's been done to improve them."

Marilyn Walsh concedes more has been done at Glenwood West.

"We looked at both cemeteries and decided what needed to be done to run them properly, decently and with respect," she said. "West has not had the attention that South has had, but it's getting there."

She also noted in court Monday, under questioning from her lawyer Louis Elovitz, that she and her husband have complied with an order by the Illinois comptroller's office to pay for external audits of cemetery trust funds.

The couple had been fined $14,000 for failure to submit annual reports for the previous two years.

The comptroller's order also involved another cemetery--Evergreen Hills Memory Gardens in Steger--which the Walshes bought from Timmer.

According to the comptroller's office, which has oversight of trust funds for cemetery upkeep, the Walshes were responsible for filing delinquent trust fund reports for 2000 and 2001 and for paying a maximum of $7,500 each for audits of 11 delinquent annual reports from the cemeteries.